Making the Decision: Going Full Time After My Summer Associate Internship

The infamous junior year internship search is grueling, stressful, disheartening, and frankly downright miserable. Not only are you trying to find the perfect internship that will hopefully turn into a job after graduation, but you’re also 20 years old, likely have no idea what you want to do career wise, and have a full course load plus extracurricular activities to spice up that resume. It’s no walk in the park. Somehow I got very lucky and landed a summer internship at my top choice firm. After nine weeks, I received a full-time offer and started senior year on cloud nine.

I could give you a litany of reasons why I knew L.E.K. was the right fit for me, but I’ll spare you. Long story short, I went through two rounds of interviews, received my summer internship offer, hoarded my Godiva basket that came after my offer for roughly two months, and finished out my junior year. In June, we started our week of training at Wentworth by the Sea in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Training was a whirlwind of information and intense intern bonding. A few of our instructors likened training to trying to drink out of a fire hose. I’ve now been through training twice and could not find a more apt comparison. Most of what you need to know will be learned on the job, but our training provided an excellent overview and introduction to our role as Summer Associates at a global strategy consulting firm.

Over the next eight weeks, I worked on three cases, attended industry specific lunches, had countless coffee chats / lunches with mentors—both formal and informal—interacted with numerous partners, tried Indian food for the first time, found a favorite conference room (Federation Square), found my favorite lunch spot, began typing faster than I ever thought possible, drank way too much coffee, and learned more than I could have imagined. I worked on cases in three different industries—healthcare, aviation, and technology. I had no background in any of these industries, but surrounded by incredible colleagues feeding off each other’s knowledge, I began talking about “the cloud” in a fairly intelligible fashion. Beyond my case work I was exposed to and welcomed into the incredibly strong firm culture at L.E.K. I enjoyed Friday Beer Cart, bowling, birthday celebrations, the summer outing sailing in Newport, and volunteering at the Greater Boston Food Bank.

I could not believe how quickly eight weeks passed and how much I learned in such a short period of time. I was excited to get my full-time offer, but wanted to be practical. Accepting a full-time job is a big commitment! In the last week of my internship I talked to other former interns in the Boston office about how they had decided to sign with L.E.K. full-time. Associates and other members of the L.E.K. community echoed what I had been feeling all summer: L.E.K. is defined and differentiated by the vibrant culture and close-knit community.

After having the opportunity to work with highly motivated, passionate, intelligent individuals and drive at a solution, I realized I couldn’t NOT work in this type of environment after graduation. There is not a single person in the L.E.K. community who won’t carve out time to answer your questions, help you learn Excel shortcuts, or make you feel more at home. I transferred my offer to the New York office and accepted whole-heartedly. I am now six months into this journey and I’ve continued to learn every day and I feel supported and encouraged by every member of the New York office.